In optical disk devices represented by CD players and DVD players, reading/writing of information to an optical disk is performed using an optical head. The optical head is equipped with an objective lens which forms a laser spot on the recording plane of an optical disk by condensing laser light emanating from a laser light source. Dust may adhere to the objective lens, which if it becomes dirty, the reading/writing performance of the optical head becomes degraded. Hence, it is desirable that the optical head be cleaned periodically, and various kinds of cleaners have been proposed in the past as stated hereafter.
Described in JP-A-2000-251296 is a cleaner for optical disk devices. The cleaner has a brush installed on a disk. By inserting the cleaner to an optical disk device and placing the brush in contact with the optical head of the optical disk device in a state where the disk is rotated at high speed, cleaning of the optical disk is performed.
Described in JP-A-H4-221432, H5-120713, H6-124473, and H8-55356 are cleaners which use a cloth, a wet-type tip, an elastically-deformable porous body, or a spongy elastic member as a contact member for cleaning an optical head. In the cleaners described in these laid-open patent publications as well, in the same way as for the cleaner described in JP2000-251296, cleaning the optical head is performed by putting the contact member in contact with the optical head while rotating it at high speed.
However, in these prior-art techniques, because the contact member is brought into contact with the optical head while rotating it at high speed, there is the possibility that the objective lens of the optical head may be scratched. Also, dust attached to the optical head will be scattered into the optical information processing device by the high-speed rotation of the contact member. Hence, there is also the problem that dust remains and accumulates inside the optical disk device.